The Edmonton Oilers recalled Brad Hunt today, and word is he'll play in Anaheim against the Ducks tonight. His NHL debut comes at a sorry time for the organization, but I'm sure he won't care. Brad Hunt is going to be a bona fide NHL player in just a few short hours—it's been a long time coming.

WHO IS BRAD HUNT?

Brad Hunt wears #29 for the Oklahoma City Barons.He's an undersized pro defenseman (5.09, 174 according to the AHL site, 5.09, 188 according to the Hockey News) with good puck moving skills. His AHL boxcars this year (27, 3-12-15 +1) imply a successful offensive defenseman and Jonathan Willis suggested as much in the summer.

Willis: What Hunt obviously brings to the organization is offence from the blue line. Two years ago, his coach at Bemidji State said he had an NHL caliber slap shot. In 2013, the hockey world received hard evidence of that as Hunt had the second-hardest shot (99.5 miles per hour) at the AHL All-Star game. His best chance at NHL employment might be as a power play specialist – 15 of his 33 points last seasoncame with the man advantage despite the fact that he didn’t get a lot of games right out of the NHL lockout.

That article linked to also details his previous experience with Craig MacTavish, which no doubt led to Hunt's signing with the Oilers (MacT coached him while both were with the Chicago Wolves organization).

BRAD HUNT ACTUAL FACTUAL

He's from Ridge Meadows, BC, which is really Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows area of the lower mainland.

He played college at Bemidji State, which is in Minnesota. Current NHLer Matt Read is from there, and former NHL player Joel Otto also came from Bemidji.

He turned pro at the end of the 2011-12 season with the Chicago Wolves.

In 2012-13, he scored well (65, 4-29-33) and the Oilers came calling.

Hunt is enjoying a strong AHL season in OKC and is clearly a player the Oilers want to look at between now and summer.

The most similar player-type in terms of skill set on the Oilers is probably Phil Larsen, although it is unlikely we'll see the same speed from Hunt.

THE BEMIDJI BEAVERS SONG

We are here to cheer you.
We're out to bring you fame.
So go Bemidji Beavers,
Fight and win this game.

B-E-M-I-D-J-I Bemidji, Bemidji, Go BEAVERS!!

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

It's a great day for Brad Hunt. His NHL debut will probably be a blur, but that line in TOTAL HOCKEY and HOCKEY-REFERENCE page will be there for history. No matter what happens after that, Brad Hunt is an NHL player.

(Barons photos by Rob Ferguson, all rights reserved).

Lowetide has been one of the Oilogosphere's shining lights for over a century. You can check him out here at OilersNation and at lowetide.ca. He is also the host of Lowdown with Lowetide weekday mornings 10-noon on TSN 1260.

Where did DSF go?I ask because my hat is off to the guy.Did he get the boot for calling a spade a spade.I do believe it was his quote"All hat no cattle".Brad Hunt is making his debut playing for a joke of a coach who puts the blame on a young Russian rather than putting any blame on himself or his staff.Nice time out Eakins,way to rally the troops,the boys gave up on you long before you gave up on the team.Chop wood carry water and your bags to YEG your time is up.The OIl had one shot in 15:00 and its the players fault you could not get them to adapt?You blew it brother and there is no way in hell the ship will right itself.Calling an Oilerfan a quitter was lip service because your team quit on you when the sharade was up about your ACCOUNTABILTY.You were brought in to develop our youth but you choose to bury them in the press and give icetime to Smyth,whos best days are behind him.When the season started our untouchable assets were going to take us to the promised land and in 42 games our assets have little value.This one is on MacT to make the proper decision and get that arrogant,self centred son of a bitch out of here.

I'm angry, depressed and sick and tired of this. I love my team, but cannot for the life of me raise ANY enthusiasm for this gong show of a team. I believe MacT is trying his hardest to sign D men, he's not sitting up in his glass penthouse (unlike POHO) and reminiscing about 6 rings. What I am mostly sick and tired of hearing from coaches AND players is "we know what we have to do to win" Well IF they KNOW, why the hell aren't they doing it? I have 4 tix for the upcoming Preds game and 4 for the Kings in March game. Have tried almost giving them away, no-one wants them, and I certainly can't/wont sit through another 60 minutes of agony, and have to pay for the privilege. I'm looking forward to NEXT season and hope the merry-go-round stops and this losing is over.

Another token AHL'er thrown into the mix . I liked him preseason , but come on management enough of this B.S.. Management gave up on this club long before disgruntled fan threw sweater on the ice . These desperation moves are prevalent far to often to help disguise the inferior job the organization is doing icing a decent team here . Same old , same old .

As I look back over the Oiler timeline from 1979 forward I reckon we are just about 'half-past Eakins'. Now if Wrecksall Sports could just wake from their long winters nap we might get to 'half-past' he of the six rings and MacT. 2014 is looking up already!

Where did DSF go?I ask because my hat is off to the guy.Did he get the boot for calling a spade a spade.I do believe it was his quote"All hat no cattle".Brad Hunt is making his debut playing for a joke of a coach who puts the blame on a young Russian rather than putting any blame on himself or his staff.Nice time out Eakins,way to rally the troops,the boys gave up on you long before you gave up on the team.Chop wood carry water and your bags to YEG your time is up.The OIl had one shot in 15:00 and its the players fault you could not get them to adapt?You blew it brother and there is no way in hell the ship will right itself.Calling an Oilerfan a quitter was lip service because your team quit on you when the sharade was up about your ACCOUNTABILTY.You were brought in to develop our youth but you choose to bury them in the press and give icetime to Smyth,whos best days are behind him.When the season started our untouchable assets were going to take us to the promised land and in 42 games our assets have little value.This one is on MacT to make the proper decision and get that arrogant,self centred son of a bitch out of here.

Oilers have pressured some of the extended media types (including Oilersnation now it appears) to stem the flow of truth/reality. The Oilers have exercised their influence here and had the real DSF banned from these boards. No ship.

Please don't ban me too LT.

If this post is removed and I don't post anything after today, I guess this ban includes me now as well.

Big brother is always watching now it appears. They're ruling the media now as well.

with Fedun, hunt and Marcini in the fold and the damn season over before it started.... I would be releasing Belov and sitting Petry..Wether we lose with them or without them, the points are the same.. none...

im asking a legit Q here.. I know we can keep the revolving coach door going.. but.. seeing as ac T isn't making any moves.. how long does Eakins have? Trade deadline next season??

Does anyone here have any trade scenarios to land is a big stud defenseman or high end goalie without trading away Hall,Nuge,Ebz,Yak,Jshultz,Perron

Nope. None. You aren't getting a big stud defenseman without at least one of those players going back the other way. Why on earth would the other team give you a top-pairing dman for anything less, ESPECIALLY when its clear the Oilers have dire need and do have some valuable assets. Gagner and Hemmer aren't ever going to do it, not even for a big stud dman, sorry to say.

Josh,
I miss the days when John Short and Bryan Hall had terrible call-in shows, and you'd call in, wait on hold for 35 minutes, and then tell us how the Oilers should trade Marc Habscheid for Ray Bourque b/c it looked like Bourque was injury prone and the Bruins were sour on him. And if it was Short's show you were calling, how John would pretend you weren't a mental defective and calmly explain how that trade would never happen even if there were a million parallel universes.
See, here's the deal: nobody's busting down the door to take the detritus of a perennial doormat. Well, except the Flames, maybe. That's why there are winning franchises and there are losing franchises.
Shea Weber will be the No. 1 Dman on Team Canada at the Olympics.
Gagner, Hemsky and Klefbom will be watching the Olympics on TV. Well, maybe Hemsky actually suits up, but that's b/c Czechoslovakia has 3 indoor rinks and hasn't developed a decent hockey player since Vaclav Havel was president.

I'm angry, depressed and sick and tired of this. I love my team, but cannot for the life of me raise ANY enthusiasm for this gong show of a team. I believe MacT is trying his hardest to sign D men, he's not sitting up in his glass penthouse (unlike POHO) and reminiscing about 6 rings. What I am mostly sick and tired of hearing from coaches AND players is "we know what we have to do to win" Well IF they KNOW, why the hell aren't they doing it? I have 4 tix for the upcoming Preds game and 4 for the Kings in March game. Have tried almost giving them away, no-one wants them, and I certainly can't/wont sit through another 60 minutes of agony, and have to pay for the privilege. I'm looking forward to NEXT season and hope the merry-go-round stops and this losing is over.

Knowing what it takes to win and actually having the physical ability to do it are different things.

The Oilers do not have enough NHL caliber player talent and that is why they are where they are.

id rather here more mike hunt jokes.....they come across as more mature and well thought out

In case you haven't heard on TSN (Darren Dreger & Pierre LeBrun & Aaron Ward) all of whom have more hockey knowledge than you do.. All are saying Nashville needs scoring and forwards and may be willing to part with Shea Weber for the right price. They drafted Seth Jones to eventually replace Weber. Brad Hunt is having a short cup of coffee in the bigs and then going back. That's it.

We get Shea Weber to play on our top D pairing and gobble up big minutes. We're SAVED I TELL YOU... SAVED!!!!

me too, I thought Hunt looked good in pre-season, he didn't seem to have that big of an issue being a smaller d-man and I was mildly surprised when he was sent down.

We had no choice but to send him down! we had to show Calgary that Smid was worth giving up Horak for! we also had to prove once and for all that Grebeshkov isn't an NHL player. plus we already have JSchultz who's pretty good at playing keep away on the powerplay

who does that million dollars to a shopper if any player scores 5 goals in a game?? can we change that to any player who scores 5 goals in a week, and themillion bucks goes to the player? that might give them some incentive